The semiconductor industry has experienced rapid growth due to continuous improvements in the integration density of a variety of electronic components (e.g., transistors, diodes, resistors, capacitors, etc.). For the most part, this improvement in integration density has come from repeated reductions in minimum feature size, which allows more components to be integrated into a given area.
As transistor sizes decrease, the size of each feature decreases. In advance processing technologies, the high aspect ratio of contact openings, which will be filled subsequently to form contact plugs, may pose a challenge for conventional gap filling methods used to fill the contact openings. There is a need in the art for processing methods that could accommodate the small feature sizes in advanced process technologies.